Author Archives: The Voice

The Voice

When Potholes Attack!

By The Voice | Sat 29th August 2009 - 2:45 pm

My thanks to LDV reader Andrew Harrison (with a hit-tip to b3ta) for bringing The Voice’s attention to the Glum Councillors website, which is dedicated to “doggedly collate images of councillors looking glum whilst pointing at holes in the road, wearing hard hats or presenting oversized cheques.”

We can take pride in the fact, sort of, that so many Lib Dems are prominently represented. As Andrew notes, pavement politics at its finest.

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The Voice

Gordon Seekings steps down as councillor

By The Voice | Wed 26th August 2009 - 6:11 pm

Lib Dem Voice doesn’t note the resignations of all councillors, but Gordon Seekings – for 22 years Lib Dem councillor for Northgate in Crawley – will be well known to many from the party’s membership services. Here’s how Crawley News reports it:

Cllr Gordon Seekings, who represented Northgate for 22 years, cited “personal reasons” for his departure. He left his Crawley Borough Council post immediately after the announcement, meaning Northgate will be missing one councillor until the by-election. …

Cllr David Shreeves, deputy leader of the council’s Labour group, added: “Gordon’s efforts as a councillor have been very valuable to the

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Posted in Local government | Tagged and | 1 Comment
The Voice

New link to Lib Dem Blogs

By The Voice | Sat 22nd August 2009 - 5:50 pm

A small housekeeping announcement: when we revamped this site, we removed the list of links to the latest blog posts on Lib Dem Blogs as the list was slow to load, took up a lot  of space and only showed posts for a very short period of time (given the volume of posts over on Lib Dem Blogs).

Many readers have said though that they appreciated the convenient links through to other Liberal Democrat blogs, so we are testing out a Lib Dem Blogs button in the right-hand column, just under the latest poll. This gives you a clickable pop …

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Posted in Site news | 11 Comments
The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Vince Cable: Banks pay up for their ‘crimes’, so why not rapists?

By The Voice | Mon 3rd August 2009 - 5:15 pm

Over at the Daily Mail, Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable argues that Britain’s system of compensation awards is “mad”. Here’s an excerpt:

… The real scandal, however, is the meanness of the criminal injuries and military compensation system. The Armed Forces scheme is now being, belatedly, reviewed. But criminal injury awards seem likely to remain not only pitifully small but severely restricted and tardy. I had to write angry letters to the Government agency dealing with criminal injuries when a constituent – an innocent bystander who had been attacked by gangsters throwing acid in a pub – had been waiting

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The Voice

How you can help Liberal Democrat Voice

By The Voice | Mon 3rd August 2009 - 10:20 am

The Voice is only a success because of the interest and support from our readers. For many people, just lurking and reading the site is all they want to do – and that’s fine, we’re grateful for people taking the time to read the site.

You can though help us continue to produce interesting content for a growing audience. Here are three simple ways:

1. Let us have your tips for stories. Perhaps there’s something outrageous going on in your local council? Or you’re an expert in a particular area and have spotted a story other people have missed? Or you’ve seen …

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Nick Clegg: If they drag McKinnon to America, he will never come back

By The Voice | Sat 1st August 2009 - 5:30 pm

Over at the Daily Mail, Nick Clegg mounts an impassioned attack against the decision to allow Gary McKinnon – the man with Asperger’s Syndrome who has admitted to being an amateur computer-hacker – to be extradited to the USA. Here’s an excerpt:

If he boards the plane to the U.S., it is almost certain he will never set foot on British soil again, doomed to pass out the rest of his days in shackles on a foreign shore. This is nothing short of a disgrace – and yet there is still one tiny glimmer of hope. Even now the courts have

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Nick Clegg: Don’t leave the Liberal Democrats out of it

By The Voice | Fri 31st July 2009 - 5:45 pm

Over at The Independent, Nick Clegg (under a slightly unfortunately whiny headline not of his creating) puts the case for a televised debate between the leaders of the main political parties. Here’s an excerpt:

A debate wouldn’t advantage a party; it would advantage the people. It would be the voters’ opportunity to see the leaders competing to be Prime Minister promoting their policies and answering difficult questions about how they’d change the country. It would bring in a wider audience than leaders could reach otherwise, giving more people the opportunity to make up their own minds based on the facts.

If Gordon

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The Voice

Clegg on Chilcot: Blair and Brown must not escape Iraq inquiry spotlight

By The Voice | Thu 30th July 2009 - 5:15 pm

The man charged with heading the inquiry into the UK’s decision to go to war with Iraq, Sir John Chilcot, has today held a press conferenece to explain the timescales and the process under which it will operate:

The “huge job” of going through vast amounts of material and evidence means the Iraq inquiry could continue into 2011 says chairman Sir John Chilcot.

Launching the inquiry he said it would be “as open as possible” with hearings televised and streamed online. But he said some hearings would be held in private for national security reasons or to allow “more candour”. Sir John said Tony Blair would be among those asked to give evidence and he did not expect anyone to refuse to do so.

There have been complaints that the inquiry, which will cover events from the summer of 2001 to the end of July 2009, will not report back before the next general election.

Nick Clegg wrote to Sir john Chilcot last month setting out the Lib Dems’ wishes for the inquiry, and has reponded to today’s announcement:

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Greg Stone: It’s time for the next Great Reform Act

By The Voice | Thu 30th July 2009 - 4:00 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free’s ‘A New Politics’ strand, Lib Dem parliamentary candidate for Newcastle East Greg Stone argues that we need to restore the health of our democracy by delivering fair voting to those dispossessed by a rotten system. You can read an excerpt here:

… while there may not be fevered discussion about AV+, STV, or d’Hondt, there is an almost universal cry for political change from the voters I speak to. The view that two-party politics and a winner-takes-all electoral system are a fundamental part of the problem is at last becoming widespread. …

Electoral reform would

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The Voice

Teather: “We need a massive increase in the number of social homes”

By The Voice | Wed 29th July 2009 - 9:00 pm

Here are the facts, as reported by The Guardian based on this research by housing charity Shelter:

More than one million children in England now live in overcrowded homes, a rise of 54,000 in the last two years, a charity warned today. New figures released by Shelter highlight the record number of under-15-year-olds living in cramped conditions, with one in 10 children in overcrowded housing.

The figures, calculated from the government’s annual Survey of English Housing, reveal the problem is particularly acute in London and among those living in social housing. One in five (331,000) children in London and one

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… James Graham: We need a harder line on voting reform

By The Voice | Wed 29th July 2009 - 8:10 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free’s ‘A New Politics’ strand Lib Dem blogger James Graham argues that if Gordon Brown is serious about electoral reform Lib Dems should support him – but we must be wary of any proposed referendum. Here’s an excerpt:

Moving to the alternative vote system might be an improvement but it is a baby step, hardly worth having a referendum over at all. Even the Jenkins-designed alternative vote plus is not without its problems. Developed 10 years ago in a failed attempt to appease Tony Blair, it is a classic example of triangulation politics. As such

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The Voice

Our new look

By The Voice | Wed 29th July 2009 - 7:08 am

So, what do you think of it so far?

Thanks to the herculean efforts of the The Voice’s Ryan, we’ve got a new look and new features. The biggest change on the home page is the introduction of three featured stories at the top, so that the best content can stay prominent for longer without being pushed aside by the latest blog posts.

There are also many changes which reflect the declining proportion of our audience who sit at a computer and come to the home page. Whether you view the site on the move (new mobile version), like using a …

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Posted in Site news | 22 Comments
The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Terry Stacy: Councils must be transparent and accountable about surveillance

By The Voice | Mon 27th July 2009 - 8:55 pm

Well, it’s not quite an op-ed article, but there’s a detailed letter from Lib Dem leader of Islington Council, Cllr Terry Stacy, urges all councils to follow Islington’s example, and reject the local use of surveillance powers. Here’s an excerpt:

… local government really is on the frontline of Britain’s expanding surveillance state – councillors and council leaders need to be held accountable for their decisions. Councillors must decide whether they embrace the surveillance society, or reject it and introduce checks and balances and public democratic oversight of the local use of surveillance powers, as the Liberal Democrats have done

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Vince Cable: Silver Power, the force that could save us

By The Voice | Sun 26th July 2009 - 3:00 pm

Over at the Daily Mail, Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable argues that the British economy needs older workers. Here’s an excerpt:

Since 2007, for the first time in British history, there have been more people over pension age than children. Every year there is a growth in the number of elderly people relative to the number of younger working people supporting them. Every Election there is an increase in the numbers of older voters relative to younger voters.

These changes are of revolutionary importance. But whenever the subject of an ageing population is discussed, it is usually in pessimistic terms. Older

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Posted in LibLink | 4 Comments
The Voice

Norwich North by-election result: open thread #nnbe

By The Voice | Fri 24th July 2009 - 12:52 pm

Here’s the result of the Norwich North by-election. In spectacularly uncoordinated fashion, all the LDV team are otherwise occupied this afternoon – so use this thread to pass your comment on the result…

The tension is clearly mounting over on Nich Starling’s twitter account, with the news expected “within five minutes” over half an hour ago.

Meanwhile over on the BBC, the Lib Dems have been squeezed out of the report entirely, with the reporter on the spot still thinking Labour could come second:

At the count in Norwich BBC correspondent Carole Walker said it looked as though Labour would come

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Posted in News and Parliamentary by-elections | Tagged | 81 Comments
The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… John Shipley: Our record in power shows that we have vision and ambition

By The Voice | Thu 23rd July 2009 - 7:00 pm

Over at The Guardian today, Councillor John Shipley, Lib Dem leader of Newcastle city council, writes a robust response to Tristram Hunt’s partial (in every sense) attack on the Lib Dems’ record in local government. Here’s an excerpt:

Tristram Hunt’s claim that the many cities and urban councils now run by Liberal Democrats lack the leadership and vision of Labour authorities such as Manchester and Glasgow is nonsense. … He fails to mention Newcastle upon Tyne at all. Lost by Labour to the Lib Dems in 2004, civic leadership flourishes here with a new £40m city library and investment in cultural

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Alix Mortimer – Why is Clegg picking this quarrel now?

By The Voice | Thu 23rd July 2009 - 4:34 pm

Lib Dem blogger and LDV-editor-on-sabbatical Alix Mortimer writes for CiF about tuition fees and the Lib Dems.

I wish people would let go of this idea that the pre-tuition fees era was some sort of egalitarian utopia. No system ever is.

Even so, Nick Clegg’s suggestion that scrapping tuition fees be downgraded from a firm Lib Dem policy commitment to an “aspiration” makes me uneasy, and not just because of the Labour-flavoured wording. I cannot imagine why he thinks this particular quarrel is worth picking now.

Read the piece here.

Alix says: “Please note that the headline and byline are, as customary with …

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Posted in LibLink | Tagged | 10 Comments
The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Lembit Opik: We need a cosmic plan

By The Voice | Wed 22nd July 2009 - 6:15 pm

Over at The Guardian, Lib Dem MP Lembit Opik returns to the subject whence he first came to public attention: the threat to the Earth of an asteroid impact. Here’s an excerpt:

The discovery of what appears to be a large crater caused by an asteroid impact on Jupiter provides a graphic illustration of the destructive potential of this type of cosmic event. Sixty-five million years ago, the reign of the dinosaurs was brought to a fiery end by a cataclysmic impact with a 10km-wide asteroid. It will happen again – we just don’t know when. However, for the first time

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Nick Clegg: MPs’ holiday betrayal

By The Voice | Wed 22nd July 2009 - 5:31 pm

Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free website, Nick Clegg argues that a Westminster stitch-up has seen both main parties dodge reform demands in the dash for the recess door. Here’s an excerpt:

If someone had told me two months ago, in the middle of the expenses scandal, that MPs would go on their summer break without having rewritten the rules of British politics, I wouldn’t have believed it. I thought the public demand for change was, for once, overwhelming. Yet, scandalously, that’s what’s happened. …

It is easy to understand the resistance to reform from the Conservatives. Maintenance of the status

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Paddy Ashdown: What we must do to win this war in Afghanistan

By The Voice | Wed 22nd July 2009 - 12:15 pm

Over at The Independent, former Lib Dem leader Lord (Paddy) Ashdown argues that the history of the Afghan war is one of continuous mistakes, and outlines the key factors which can transform defeat into success. Here’s an excerpt:

I start from the proposition that the war in Afghanistan is one we have to fight and must win. The cost of failure there is just too great. It includes the certain fall of Pakistan and the possible emergence of the world’s first Jihadist Government with a nuclear weapon; the re-creation in Afghanistan of a lawless space open for the preparation and export

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The Voice

Can you help save Bletchley Park for the nation?

By The Voice | Tue 21st July 2009 - 6:45 pm

Lib Dem councillor and blogger Mary Reid has issued the following plea, which The Voice is delighted to advertise further:

Lib Dem MP Phil Willis has put down EDM 1935 as follows:

FUNDING FOR BLETCHLEY PARK (20.07.2009)
Willis, Phil

That this House recognises the signficance of Bletchley Park, historic site of secret British code-breaking activities during the Second World War and birthplace of the modern computer; acknowledges that the use of the intelligence gained at Bletchley Park and subsequent related actions of the Allies is said to have shortened the Second World War by two years, saving countless lives; and calls on

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Vince Cable: Some banks have not acknowledged their near-death experience

By The Voice | Tue 21st July 2009 - 1:30 pm

Over at The Independent, Lib Dem shadow chancellor Vince Cable’s speech to the London Stock Exchange is excerpted:

I stand here to outline the Liberal Democrat proposals for significant changes to the regulatory structure of the City and its future direction. These proposals build on ideas we set out over a year ago in our New Deal for the City. Some of those ideas – macroprudential regulation of bank capital; linking bonuses to long-term stock performance; reform of rating agencies – have become part of the conventional wisdom and I don’t need to rehearse them.

You can read more excerpts from …

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Lembit Opik: This much I know

By The Voice | Mon 20th July 2009 - 2:00 pm

Yesterday’s Observer feature – the revealing ‘This much I know’ – featured ubiquitous Lib Dem MP Lembit Opik. Here’s a couple of excerpts:

The press has created for me a persona as a wacky guy who goes out with beautiful women, and there were times in my life when I would have paid for that image. But it really annoys me when people ring up and say: “What are you doing going out with so and so?” I could be banging Adam Price and it wouldn’t affect my ability to do my job.

I joined the Liberal Democrats when they

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Nick Clegg and Merlene Emerson write for Operation Black Vote blog

By The Voice | Sat 18th July 2009 - 1:45 pm

Over at the new Operation Black Vote (OBV) blog, two Lib Dems – Nick Clegg and Merlene Emerson – have published articles, excerpts below…

Believing in our children, not criminalising them (Nick Clegg)

Nick argues that dealing with crime needs a completely new approach to the counter-productive policies of New Labour:

In these difficult times, the prospect of rising youth offending is a serious one. But fear mustn’t now give credence to the New Labour way, which is to bang up our children the moment they divert from the straight and narrow. Britain now has 3,000 children in prison – more than

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The Voice

Clegg: Brown’s “staggering chaos and confusion” on Trident

By The Voice | Fri 17th July 2009 - 6:20 pm

The BBC has the story:

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has attacked government “chaos and confusion” over renewing the Trident missile system. No 10 has insisted the timetable for renewing Trident is unchanged. But earlier, officials implied that key decisions would be put off until May 2010 ahead of a conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Mr Clegg said the prime minister should make a “climbdown” and admit the missile system was not justified given equipment shortages in Afghanistan. In a statement, Downing Street said there had been “no change” in the government position that Trident would be renewed.

Here’s Nick’s …

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV… Nick Clegg: An end to the duopoly that dominated 20th-century Britain

By The Voice | Fri 17th July 2009 - 10:00 am

The Independent today publishes an extrract from Nick Clegg’s speech to the National Liberal Club, marking the 150th anniversary of the first Parliamentary Liberal Party caucus. Here’s an excerpt from the excerpt:

… in the battle of ideas the Liberal Democrats are winning. The first party to identify the dangers of an overleveraged banking system. The first to advocate radical political reform. Consistent in our defence of civil liberties. Principled in our defence of the international rule of law. Outspoken in correcting our woefully imbalanced tax system. Radical on the need to make Britain environmentally sustainable. Brave in standing up to

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The Voice

CommentIsLinked@LDV: Chris Huhne – Fresh questions for the News of the World

By The Voice | Tue 14th July 2009 - 6:30 pm

Over at The Guardian, Lib Dem shadow home secretary Chris Huhne argues that fresh evidence in the News of the World hacking scandal should compel the Met to re-open its inquiry. Here’s an excerpt:

The surveillance state has rightly become a matter of great public concern, which is why the Guardian’s scoop that the use of private investigators who phone hacked was apparently widespread on the News of the World was so sensational. This is not something that can be brushed aside, because it strikes at the heart of the privacy any individual can expect in a civilised society. If the

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The Voice

Clegg on Afghanistan: Government strategy “over-ambitious and under-resourced”

By The Voice | Mon 13th July 2009 - 6:20 pm

The decision by Nick Clegg to break the political concensus by questioning British military strategy in Afghanistan, combined with further tragic casualties in the past week, has seen the conflict propelled to the forefront of national debate. Today the Prime Minister came to the Commons to deliver a Parliamentary statement on the war in Afghanistan and last week’s G8 Summit. Here’s what Nick Clegg said in response:

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Posted in News and Parliament | Tagged , and | 6 Comments
The Voice

Ming to head police inquiry into Damian Green police raid

By The Voice | Mon 13th July 2009 - 2:30 pm

Here’s how the BBC reported this under the slightly unappetising headline, Sir Menzies to head Green probe:

Sir Menzies Campbell is to chair an inquiry into the police raid on the Commons office of Tory MP Damian Green.

The former Lib Dem leader will review how the Commons authorities deal with search requests from the police. The cross-party panel also includes former home secretaries David Blunkett and Michael Howard and ex-foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind.

Commons leader Harriet Harman, who has set up the pane, will ask MPs to approve its terms of reference. She has asked it to report by

…

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The Voice

Online event: Reuters social media Q&A with Nick Clegg (13/7/09)

By The Voice | Fri 10th July 2009 - 4:45 pm

An email drops into the Voice’s inbox asking us to alert readers to the following event:

Just wanted to give you a heads up that on Monday, Nick Clegg, the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, will be joining the Reuters UK team to take questions live for one of the first purely social media events of its kind. No topic is off limits. Should you wish to post a question, read the comments thus far and get a firsthand account of Nick Clegg’s take on the importance of social media in politics, please click here.

The event will take place from 12.15 – 2pm BST on Monday July 13th. Should you wish to participate, you can find the live video stream on the link above.

Event co-host Journalism.co.uk explains a little more about the event:

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